Brit Awards prompt 825 complaints about music stars to Ofcom

The Brit Awards ceremony last weekend prompted 825 complaints to media watchdog Ofcom, with the majority involving Sabrina Carpenter's pre-watershed opening performance and Charli XCX's outfit.

US star Carpenter opened the awards show at The O2 in London on Saturday evening with a mash-up of her hits Espresso, Bed Chem with Rule Britannia!, while wearing a red sparkly military-style mini-dress with matching stockings and suspenders.

She was also seen having a close encounter with a dancer dressed as a soldier wearing a bearskin hat during the show, broadcast live on ITV.

Essex star Charli XCX, who won five awards, wore a see-through black dress and addressed the controversy over her outfit during one of her speeches on the night: "I heard that ITV were complaining about my nipples. I feel like we're in the era of 'free the nipple' though, right?"

An Ofcom spokesperson said: "We are assessing the complaints against our rules, but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate."

The watershed is 21:00. It marks the time when TV programmes which might be unsuitable for children can be broadcast from. The Brits began at 20:15 GMT and ended at 22:40.

Charli XCX won album of the year for her summer hit Brat. She also picked up best dance act, song of the year for her track Guess, featuring Billie Eilish (who was the first non-Brit to appear on a best song-winner), plus songwriter of the year.

Carpenter was honoured with the recently resurrected global success award.

The prize was originally created in 2013 to recognise British acts who had sold millions of records and concert tickets abroad. The previous recipients were One Direction (2013-14), Sam Smith (2015), Adele (2016-17) and Ed Sheeran (2018-19).

Six years ago it was abandoned altogether, but it may have been brought back to lure Carpenter to perform.

This isn't the first time the Brit Awards have prompted complaints.

• In 2020, Ofcom received 309 complaints that rapper Dave's performance at the awards was racist against white people, but this was rejected by the media watchdog. Dave had performed the song Black, but Ofcom said it was "likely to be within most viewers' expectations of this well-established awards ceremony".
• Ofcom received 74 complaints in 2018 about Kendrick Lamar's performance at that year's ceremony - he was muted 10 times while performing Feel and New Freezer. His set also included a man taking a baseball bat to the windshield of an expensive-looking sports car. Some people complained this might incite criminal behaviour and property damage, and some complained about implied bad language.
• In 2015, Ofcom dismissed 151 complaints about offensive language and race discrimination or offence raised about Kanye West's language, during his performance at the awards. Parts of the rapper's song All Day were muted by ITV, and Ofcom said the broadcaster had tried to cut out offensive language by airing the ceremony with a short delay.

These complaints numbers are not huge by Ofcom's standards - in September 2024, the watchdog said it would not investigate more than 16,000 complaints about an episode of ITV breakfast show Good Morning Britain a month earlier.

Ed Balls and co-host Kate Garraway had interviewed his wife, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper on the show about the government's response to violent unrest in parts of the UK.

Some of the complaints about the episode also related to how Balls and Garraway questioned Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, in a separate interview.